The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management anticipates issuing a solicitation for a new long-term cleanup contract next month at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
That is the last request for proposal (RFP) the agency’s nuclear-cleanup office plans to issue this calendar year, according to a quarterly update posted Thursday on a federal procurement website. DOE issued the draft request for proposals for the Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in August. The agency previously thought the final RFP would show up this month.
In July, DOE announced an extension of up to two years for incumbent Oak Ridge cleanup prime URS/CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), an Amentum-Jacobs partnership. In August 2011 the team started work on a $3.3-billion deal for decontamination and decommissioning at the site, especially the former K-25 uranium enrichment complex now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park.
DOE plans to keep UCOR in place at Oak Ridge through July 2021, plus a pair of six-month options that could extend the company’s contract through July 2022. DOE has not yet revealed the value of the extension.
In October, DOE and elected officials marked the final demolition of K-25 enrichment complex.
The follow-on Oak Ridge cleanup contract could be worth up to $6 billion over 10 years. In addition to taking down contaminated structures at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, the contract also involves oversight of a mercury treatment facility under construction and a planned new landfill for construction debris.
Among other things the winning bidder must run the liquid and gaseous waste operations, transuranic waste debris storage and shipment support along with surveillance and upkeep of any Office of Environmental Management facilities at Y-12 and the laboratory.
Meanwhile, the Office of Environmental Management hopes to issue an RFP for cleanup of the Moab, Utah Uranium Mill Tailings Project in January. In October, the office released a draft RFP for what could prove to be a $600 million, 10-year deal at Moab.
Incumbent North Wind Portage holds a $187-million Moab contract that began in October 2016 and runs through September 2021. The work involves moving tailings 30 miles by rail from the old Atlas Mineral Corp. uranium ore processing site to the Crescent Junction waste disposal facility. Tailings are radioactive debris left over from processing uranium ore.
December will cap a busy year for the procurement folks at DOE’s Environmental Management Office, which in early October rolled out the final RFP for a potential $21-billion, long-term liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The current prime is the Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation.
Separately, sources have said in recent weeks that they expect DOE to award the first-ever stand-alone contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory by December. Savannah River Site’s Fluor-led management and operations contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, currently manages the lab under a nearly $15-billion contract that began in August 2008 and is currently slated to run through September 2021. The DOE issued a request for information on a potential new contract in August.
